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Triston Casas and Grant Williams are teammates with distinctly different profiles. Boston’s first-round pick in the 2018 draft, the 21-year-old Casas is a 6-foot-4, 250-pound first baseman who is No. 2 on our Red Sox Top Prospects list, and No. 42 on our updated Top 100 Prospects list. Williams is unranked. A 25-year-old middle infielder who lasted until the 310th pick of the 2018 draft, he hit in the nine-hole when the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs hosted the Somerset Patriots on Wednesday night. Befitting his stature, Casas batted third.

Prior to the game, I spoke to both players about their respective hitting approaches.

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Casas possesses plus power, but he doesn’t present as a pure slugger. Patience is a big part of his M.O., as is a willingness to choke up on the bat when contact is at a premium. The lefty swinger cited Joey Votto as his role model when he was featured in a January 2020 Sunday Notes column, and as he acknowledged on Wednesday, that remains the case.

I asked Casas if he’s changed as a hitter since entering pro ball three years ago.

“I’d like to think I haven’t, but I have a lot,” responded the Plantation, Florida product. “I kind of battle that. I fight every single day to make adjustments and become the best hitter that I can, but to also apply what I’ve been doing my whole life. So I like to say that I haven’t changed too much, but at the same time, I have.”

I asked the up-and-coming youngster if he could elaborate. Read the rest of this entry »

Because there are so few minor league baseball games on Mondays this year, you’ll see me play with the format of the Tuesday Daily Prospect Notes. I’m lucky that the top prospect in the sport, 20-year-old Tampa Bay Rays infielder Wander Franco, is likely to debut against the Red Sox this evening. The Franco report from the Rays/Top 100 lists still applies, and folks looking for a general overview of his talent should go jam on the clipboard here and read that if you haven’t already done so. Today I’m going to be breaking down his 2021 season using Synergy Baseball, a pitch-by-pitch video software program that is often used by MLB teams.

We made a decision to allocate scouting travel budget toward Synergy Baseball during the offseason, when the timeline for vaccines was still hazy but the presence of COVID was not. Unsure if/how much I’d be travelling again this year, we funneled money into Synergy in case I could not. It was initially useful for watching action in foreign pro leagues and during Spring Training as I worked on prospect lists, but Kevin Goldstein and I also have access to pitch-by-pitch video from Triple-A games (not the whole minors, just Triple-A), as well as metadata from each pitch. I can’t share video with you here (or anywhere) or I’d be in violation of MiLB.tv terms of service, but I can share with you some of the Franco metadata to illustrate the specific nature of his skills and put them in a big league context.

Read the rest of this entry »

These are notes on prospects from Tess Taruskin. Read previous installments here.

Reid Detmers, LHP, Los Angeles Angels
Level & Affiliate: Double-A Rocket City Age: 21 Org Rank: 3  FV: 45+
Line: 6 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 14 K
Notes
Detmers’ delivery starts out somewhat slow, almost nonchalant, but ends with an explosive arm action that hitters seem to have trouble gauging or reacting to. In the first game of the Trash Pandas’ Father’s Day double-header against the Biloxi Shuckers, Detmers got to work right away with an immaculate inning, fanning his first three hitters on nine pitches. He went on to strike out a total of fourteen Shuckers in his six innings of work before handing the game over to reliever Oliver Ortega for the save. Detmers is only the fourth pitcher in the history of the Angels’ minor league system to strike out 14 in a game — interestingly, only four days after his teammate Cooper Criswell became the third to do so.

Read the rest of this entry »

Back in December, Eric Longenhagen compiled FanGraphs’ annual Reds Prospect List, identifying 36 noteworthy players in Cincinnati’s system. Here’s an update on the top-ranked players and best performers from that list, along with some previously unlisted prospects who’ve made a case for themselves to be included in lists to come.

Updates on the Top Five:

Perhaps the most notable update for Jose Barrero (formerly Garcia) is in regard to his surname, which he changed last month to honor his late mother who passed away due to complications from COVID-19. On the field, he is still the Reds’ top-ranked player, with a slash line of .333/.392/.515 — good for a 151 wRC+  — at Double A. That’s a vast improvement over his numbers during the shortened 2020 season, when he was prematurely called up to the majors despite never having played above A-ball because of the Reds’ lackluster middle infield options. His strikeout rate is still too high for comfort (20.3%) and comes paired with a similarly unsatisfactory walk rate (8.4%), so his approach is still the order of the day in terms of his development.

Tyler Stephenson, Cincinnati’s no. 2 prospect, has seen a good amount of playing time this season, much of it at first base during the weeks that Joey Votto was on the IL. He has a 126 wRC+ on the season, with a 13.2% walk rate and 18% strikeout rate that are both better than league average, as is his slash line of .270/.383/.418. Despite the important role Stephenson has played, his at-bats are going to take a dip; with Votto back in the lineup, he will be relegated to sharing time behind the dish with Tucker Barnhart. Read the rest of this entry »

Spencer Strider is a pitching nerd. He’s also a promising prospect putting up stellar numbers in his first professional season. Drafted in the fourth round last year out of Clemson University, the 22-year-old right-hander has a sparkling 1.50 ERA in six starts split between Low-A Augusta and High-A Rome. Moreover, he’s overpowering hitters to the tune of 14 hits allowed and 44 strikeouts in 24 innings.

Strider — No. 22 on our Atlanta Braves Top Prospects list — nerded out about his repertoire, and the evolution of his approach, prior to last night’s game.

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David Laurila: Tell me about yourself as a pitcher. How do you get guys out?

Spencer Strider: “I believe in attacking the zone and putting the game in the hitters’ hands. Whether you’re throwing 50 [mph] and can’t throw a strike, or you’re throwing 101 and spotting up like Jacob deGrom, the hitters have to deal with whatever you give them. The statistics show that’s going to work in your favor the vast majority of the time.

“I’ve also come to learn a lot about my fastball. At the end of college we were able to get more more data and metrics on it, and I understood the concept of vertical break, how spin is helpful, and everything else that’s part of the vernacular now. I’ve focused on pitching to the top half of the zone, where it’s most difficult to hit a good rising fastball. Most of my attention over the last few months has been working on a breaking ball that complements that fastball use, something with more vertical depth at a high velocity.”

Laurila: For years, pitchers tended to tell me that they pitch to contact. Now it’s more common for them to say they’re trying to miss bats. Where do you stand?

Strider: “I’m definitely trying to miss bats. That’s the best outcome. I want to give myself the best chance of being successful, and if a guy swings-and-misses, I can’t be hurt by that. If I can pitch in a way that guarantees me more swings-and-misses, that helps remove the possibility of bad outcomes. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Oakland Athletics. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. As there was no minor league season in 2020, there are some instances where no new information was gleaned about a player. Players whose write-ups have not been meaningfully altered begin by telling you so. As always, I’ve leaned more heavily on sources from outside of a given org than those within for reasons of objectivity. Because outside scouts were not allowed at the alternate sites, I’ve primarily focused on data from there, and the context of that data, in my opinion, reduces how meaningful it is. Lastly, in an effort to more clearly indicate relievers’ anticipated roles, you’ll see two reliever designations, both on my lists and on The Board: MIRP, or multi-inning relief pitcher, and SIRP, or single-inning relief pitcher.

For more information on the 20-80 scouting scale by which all of our prospect content is governed, you can click here. For further explanation of Future Value’s merits and drawbacks, read Future Value.

All of the numbered prospects here also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It can be found here.

Kevin Goldstein and I have updated the pro portion of the Top 100, which means we quickly reviewed the placement of players in the 50 FV tier and above, and considered who was not yet in those tiers but should be based on how they’ve looked during the first month of the 2021 season. I still have three total org audits to do — Milwaukee, Oakland and the Cubs — before I start peeling graduates off the list. Those will be completed shortly. You can find the updated list here.

Also, if you missed it, Kevin and I updated our draft rankings and posted a Mock Draft on Monday.

The lone change up near the top of the 100 is Riley Greene moving into the top 20; he’s in the mix with several other similarly-aged players with the talent to be consistent All-Stars, like Bobby Witt Jr., Julio Rodríguez, and Corbin Carroll.

DL Hall moved into the 55 FV tier on the strength of his stuff. He’s still walking a fairly high rate of opposing batters but just on the strength of his three plus pitches, could be a Haderesque relief weapon even if he can’t start. Read the rest of this entry »

Ryan Pepiot is No. 6 on our Los Angeles Dodgers Top Prospects list largely because of his changeup. Baseball America has described the 23-year-old’s best pitch as “devastating [and] plus-plus,’ while our own Eric Longenhagen has likened it to Devin Williams’s Airbender. Per BA, Pepiot has the second-best changeup in the minors, with only Jackson Kowar’s grading out as better.

The Dodgers’ third-round pick in the 2018 draft out of Butler University, Pepiot has made six starts with the Double-A Tulsa Drillers this year and has a 1.64 ERA to go with 33 strikeouts — and just 10 hits allowed — in 22 innings of work. He discussed his signature offering, and touched on the rest of his repertoire, prior to last night’s game.

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David Laurila: How would you describe your changeup?

Ryan Pepiot: “I’m trying to make it as close to a screwball as possible. A lot of guys cut the spin when they throw their changeups, but the way mine works, I actually spin the ball more than I do my fastball. It’s kind of like how Devin Williams does it, where he spins it close to 3,000 [rpm]. I’m not that high — I’m in the 2,500-2,600 range — but I get arm-side fade and depth. I throw a four-seam circle change, and that allows the spin to look closer to a fastball from a hitter’s perspective. That helps get swings-and-misses, and also takes on pitches that sometimes I wouldn’t get takes on if it was a two-seam changeup and you could see the spin.”

Laurila: It sounds like you don’t back away from the Devin Williams comps you’ve gotten at times.

Pepiot: “No. I see his and I’m like, ‘That’s just gross.’ Like, how do you make something move like that? When I’m out there, I’m trying to do something similar.”

Laurila: What is the story behind your changeup? You don’t just walk onto the mound and start throwing a pitch like that. Read the rest of this entry »

Lyon Richardson remains raw with a ton of potential. Ranked sixth on our Cincinnati Reds Top Prospects list, the 21-year-old right-hander has a 5.13 ERA in seven starts for High-A Dayton, but he also has a pair of a high-octane heaters, a plus changeup, and a hard curveball that gets side-to-side movement. What he lacks more than anything is experience on the mound. Primarily a position player as a Florida prep, Richardson didn’t become a starter until his senior year at Jensen Beach High School. It was then that he began turning heads. Enamored with his athleticism and explosive velocity, the Reds selected him with the 47th-overall pick of the 2018 draft.

Richardson discussed his arsenal, and the learning curve that goes along with it, late last week.

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David Laurila: Describe yourself as a pitcher.

Lyon Richardson: “I haven’t been pitching for very long. I just try to learn as much as I can, and be as aggressive as I can. At this point, I don’t really have the ability to give in, if that makes any sense. So really, I just try to be as aggressive as possible and push the hitter.”

Laurila: Would you say you’re more of a “stuff guy” right now?

Richardson: “For the most part, in the history of me pitching, I’m a thrower. Historically, I’m a position player, so all I really knew was to throw hard. I’m trying to be more of a stuff guy, but it’s in production. It’s definitely a production.”

Laurila: By and large, you’re trying to be a stuff guy and learning to “pitch” at the same time?

Richardson: “Correct. So, my velocity is definitely up — especially over the past year — and being able to control the pitches with that velocity is definitely a big thing. In 2019, I think my average fastball was 89 to 92 [mph] — something like that. Out of high school, I was anywhere from 95 to 98. This year, it’s back up to right around high school range. I was up to 98 in spring training, and I’ve been up to 97 a bunch so far this season.” Read the rest of this entry »